posted
Once, when I was very young, I remember living through a hurricane. I was too young to fully understand what was going on but I distinctly remember coming up out of the basement of our Rhode Island home to see the forest devistated. Well, not the whole forest, but to a youngster, seeing several massive trees uprooted and cast across the lawn like the discarded toys of a child made me feel like the whole forest was gone. I remember looking up at the blue, cloudless sky and wondering how such a force could be unleashed from such a seemingly calm day. I remember we listened to the radio while the storm was on us trying to determine how much longer it was going to last. Other than the hushing white noise of the radio I never heard a thing. no creaking, no smashing, no nothing. And yet when I came up, destruction was visible everywhere. It was the silence that stuck with me. The silence that should have been a torrent of noise and power. The silence that came and took the forest away. I will never forget that feeling. The feeling that no matter how things seem now, something could descend upon you so furious that it could rip the earth from the sky, level landscapes, flatten forests, and leave us cowering beneath our homes. I would later be told the hurricane had a name, Gloria. What use could a hurricane have for a name I thought. What, are there some sort of storm parties where everyone wore name tags and the one standing by the punch bowl twirling my swing-set on her finger was Gloria? the imagination of a child.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
We inadvertently rode out Alex right near the eye of the storm last summer. Fortunately, we were about a half mile north of the area where the storm surge swamped people's cars and ruined their vacations. For us it was running around putting pots and pans and bowls under leaks in the roof and saying, Wow, this is so powerful and awesome and etc. as we watched the winds and waves whip around and relocate garbage cans and beach paraphernalia.
Not a bad hurricane - I think the death toll was zero - but it did have one tragic outcome - our favorite restaurant was cut off from the main island and an ad hoc ferry was instituted to get people on and off. Good thing we had already eaten there twice on that vacation. <grin>
It would TAKE a hurricane to keep me from a good restaurant.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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